411 Question of the Week (2/23)

Moving
along in our position-by-position look at ADP rankings, what would you change
on these Top 15 2B rankings from Mock Draft Central?

Chase Utley

Ian Kinsler

Brandon Phillips

Dustin Pedroia

Brian Roberts

Robinson Cano

Aaron Hill

Ben Zobrist

Dan Uggla

Jose Lopez

Howie Kendrick

Orlando Hudson

Rickie Weeks

Martin Prado

Placido Polanco

As likeable
a person as he may be, Orlando Hudson simply doesn’t belong on this list. He
hasn’t topped 10 homers in a season since 2006, and he’s reached that many
steals only once in his career, and while his batting averages have generally
risen throughout his career, that hasn’t led to meaningful growth in runs or
RBI’s. Batting among Span, Mauer and Morneau should be a plus, but Hudson is strictly a
late-round fall-back option, not the starting fantasy second baseman that his
#12 ranking would suggest.

-Cory

This is a tough one.
On paper the position looks deep, but I’m not so sure. After Utley and Kinsler
you could probably pick out of a hat for 3-6 and make a very solid argument.
You have a guy who has went 30-30 in Phillips, an MVP in Pedroia and the high
power, average and run total of Cano. Roberts and his back have me concerned
since he’s also 32 but he still deserves to be in that tier of 3-6. The real
question is who is for real from 7 on down. Are Hill and Zobrist legit? Is this
the year Kendrick really breaks out? I’m not the biggest Howard fan and
the fact he is #11 says a lot to me but that doesn’t mean he can’t
move up to #7 or higher at year’s end. I see Kelly Johnson having a bounce back
year in Arizona, and as I agree with Cory on Hudson, I’d sub in
Johnson for the O-dawg.

-Siano

I really can’t argue
with most of these rankings but one small change I’d make is moving Pedroia
ahead of Phillips. Over the past two seasons, Phillips holds a combined .269
batting average with 41 homers, 176 RBIs, 48 stolen bases and 158 runs scored.
During that same span, Pedroia has batted .311 with 32 home runs, 155 RBIs, 40
steals and 233 runs. Phillips’ edge in homers, RBIs and steals is easily
outweighed by Pedroia’s domination in the average and runs categories. Don’t
get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of Phillips and his consistent power/speed
production, but a 42 point difference in average is simply too much to overlook
and the runs discrepancy should only continue considering Brandon’s low OBP and the fact that he’s
hitting more towards the middle of the order.

10 Comments

He observed an apparent 25 HR breakpoint to reach an ADP less than 200 in that study. I know when I look at last year’s stats and this year’s projections I tend to focus more on guys who achieve certain plateaus, such as 10 SB, 20 HR, 80R or RBI, .280 AVG, etc. Also, many fantasy articles throw out groupings like 20-20, 30-10 etc., so this could have an effect on the perceived values of players relative to those nice, round numbers. Each person certainly has their own preferences and tolerances, but perhaps there is a way to take advantage of some of these tendencies.

Assuming you don’t hear as much about Player A who went 18-8 as you do Player B who went 21-11, Player A may drop further in drafts than he should for the relative loss in value. In addition, guys whose stats from last year look like player A but whose projections look more like Player B could be either value picks or overrated depending on perception.

I am not a statistician by any means, so this is all speculation. However, I thought these may be some concepts worth exploring. Does anyone have any thoughts to add or any kind of analytical ability and interest with which to do a little digging? Thank you.

Hey, I noticed that the sum of the projected wins of all pitchers is over 3500. Since there are only 2430 games in a season (30 teams * 162 games / 2), I’m wondering about the sources of this error. Do you think it’s the boatload of pitchers projected to have a win or two that is messing this up? Something else? Is it even worth trying to scale this back to try to come up with more accurate projections?

Brad from Cupertino

PS: Looks like the Yankees are in for a good year. Their pitchers are projected to have about 135 combined wins! ;-)

Hi there, Love these comments on the ADP rankings, can’t wait to see your takes on the OF. I am fighting with my final keeper slots, What are your projections on where they will be drafted, there value etc. on Andre Either, Nelson Cruz and Brandon Phillips, or could possibly get Josh Hamilton included in a trade I am working on if I would want him? This is a standard 12 team, mixed, keep 5. Also have Utley and Braun

Cadio, I think Phillips will go first among those three because of position scarcity; Cruz and Either will be very close in value, with Cruz possibly even coming at a slight discount because of the DL stint last year. I’m still a little skeptical of his shelf-life though and think Ethier will end up being the better long term (next 3-5 years) value. Hamilton will go after all of them because, let’s face it, he hasn’t exactly lit up the sky since the ’08 HR Derby.

If Figgins does start the year at 2B and we’re all confident that he’ll play enough games there to gain eligibility, I’d personally place him at #7 behind Cano. This is definitely debatable but the high AVG, runs and steals are certainly more valuable when you’re getting them from an MI slot. Figgins’ utter lack of power won’t hurt you nearly as much as it would if he were strictly a third baseman.

Junk, once Beckham gets 2B eligibility, I’d probably rank him around 10th, behind guys like Zobrist and Hill but comparable to or ahead of Jose Lopez and Kendrick. The multi-position eligibility certainly adds value.

That said, I’d still keep Carlos Gonzalez over him… Car-Go may struggle with his average at times, but he looks like a 20+ HR and 15+ SB guy this year with much greater upside than that. They’re very close in value though, and don’t forget that while Car-Go plays in Coors, Beckham plays in the best HR park in the AL, so he should put up strong numbers in the next few seasons, too.

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